BludgerTrack: 51.7-48.3 to Labor

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This week’s 51-49 Newspoll result has caused a slight moderation in this week’s BludgerTrack poll aggregate, which blew out to 52.2-47.8 last week on the back of strong result for Labor from ReachTEL. The 0.5% shift has had a bigger-than-usual effect on the seat projection, with Labor slipping four seats to barely make it to majority government status. This amounts to one seat each in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. There are two new data points for leaders’ ratings, from Newspoll and Essential, and they’ve caused the trendlines to continue moving in the directions they were already headed  inexorably downwards for both leaders on net approval, with a gently narrowing trend on preferred prime minister.

Consumer confidence has collapsed, sliding to its lowest point since the Gillard prime ministership as Labor supporters despair about jobs, the economy and business profitability.

The latest result, a consumer sentiment index number of 99.5 means pessimists outweigh optimists by 0.5 percentage points, the first time that has happened since May 2013. It’s a spectacular dive from the November post-election high of 110.3 where optimists outweighed pessimists by 10.3 percentage points..

As is often the case, we can’t work out from this whether those surveyed were Labor supporters at the last election or have become Labor supporters BECAUSE of their pessimism about the economy..

”Asked which news items they recalled, over two thirds of consumers nominated news on ‘economic conditions’ with most viewing the news as negative,” he said.

”Within this broad topic, 37 per cent recalled news specifically about ‘business profitability’ – the highest level of recall since the global financial crisis in 2008 and prior to that since the sharemarket crash in 1987.

”Consumers also had a very high recall rate for employment-related news with 45 per cent reporting items on this topic, the highest reading since we began running these questions in 1976.”

I feel like doing one of those riffs climate change deniers do when confronted with “but this is the hottest day recorded since…”

Westpac’s separate unemployment expectations index has climbed 15 per cent since the September election.

”The index is at an extreme high only eclipsed by readings during 2008-09 and the recessions in the early 1990s and early 1980s,” Mr Hassan said. ”Higher readings indicate more consumers expect unemployment to rise.

Eek.

The pessimism isn’t yet evident in sales. The consumers who agreed that now was ”a good time to buy a major household item” outnumbered those who did not by 35 percentage points.

Absolutely. Mum hasn’t lost her job yet, so we’d better grab what we need whilst we still have the money coming in.

The results add to pressure on the Treasurer to construct a budget that kindles rather than dampens confidence.

After 100 or so days there is a bit of rain about in Perth this morning. Just had a very brief shower in the inner southern suburbs.,prediction is for 1mm so it will barely settle the dust. Still sounds nice on the roof .

I believe the story goes something like this.
The Coopers have always been part of the Adelaide establishment. When womens sufferage was being debated way way back in SA parliament a “Cooper” argued most venemently against it. As it turned out I think it was his grand daughter was the first woment voted into SA parliament – on a gerrymander of couse.
The legislative council in those days was also restricted to landowners being able to vote. All very easy if you a Cooper.

I think it was his grand daughter was the first woment voted into SA parliament – on a gerrymander of couse.

Jessie Cooper and Joyce Steele were the first women elected to South Australia’s parliament, Jessie Cooper winning a Legislative Council seat and Joyce Steele a seat in the Legislative Assembly at the elections on 7 March 1959.

South Australian women had been the first in Australia to win the right to vote and to stand for election, but it took 64 years before the first women entered the parliament.

[At present we struggle because governments imagine user pays can fix everything. It can’t. Some necessary works are not viable as toll roads, and public transport almost never pays for itself. We need to tax more to pay for essential services too.]

Oh I agree.

Major roads, assuming there’s a case for them in each proposed instance, really ought to be publicly funded, because one of the things governments can generally do better than the private sector is raising cheap funds.

That said, I believe major connecting roads ought to be user pays based on vehicle tare, the driver profile, the vehicle type, traffic contention and the existence or absence of parallel public transport corridors. In some cases, shuttle bus services could run the length of the major roads during the peak and shoulder, subsidised by the vehicles paying the tolls. Parallel rail corridors could also benefit with an increase in services.

I love Andrew Leigh’s ability to counteract smartarske talking heads like 2CCs Mark Parton. Leigh was to speak on the sacking of Martin Parkison and it started with

[MARK PARTON: I don’t think Andrew Leigh is going to be reinventing himself any time soon; driving a taxi or working in a bakery. He is these days the Federal Member for Fraser in Federal Parliament with the ALP. He is on the line right now. Morning Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: G’day Mark. It is my third career. I was a lawyer for a while. I was a professor for a while –

PARTON: Yes it is. I’d forgotten about that –

LEIGH: And we haven’t even gone into my fruit picking and newspaper delivery days -]

Interesting that Leigh also told Hockey personally that it was foolish and vindictive to get rid of Parkinson.